Column: Keep Pa. growing by raising minimum wage

Our economy slowly recovering, finally adding jobs after the horrible losses of the George W. Bush years. With the unofficial beginning of fall campaign season, it's time to focus on the one key step remaining that Pennsylvania must take to make sure that welcome job growth doesn't leave more working people in poverty: Raising the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour.

The Pennsylvania Working Families is a new progressive political organization, and raising the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour is our top statewide priority. Delaware County, an important swing area of the state, is key to our efforts, so we are going door to door here to identify supporters of the minimum wage, and most importantly those who would benefit if such a wage were passed.

Even in this relatively affluent county, it's not hard to find people working for less than $10.10 an hour -- they're serving you food in pizza parlors and fast food restaurants, they're ringing you up in clothing stores, they're mowing your lawn, they're watching your kids in day care. Across the political spectrum, people agree that the current minimum wage ($7.25 an hour) is too low and should be raised. People are eager to sign our petition, and support the workers who support them every day. Sixty two percent of the registered voters we asked to sign in support of minimum wage did so. That's no accident - raising the minimum wage statewide to $10.10 an hour would benefit nearly 40,000 workers right here in Delaware County. We are talking to the workers behind those numbers.

These working Pennsylvanians - more than the entire population of the city of Chester - would have the ability to pay their bills without having to decide between rent and food, or medical care and electricity if a minimum wage increase passed. When you hear the stories of minimum wage workers and what they have to do to get by, it's hard not to support a raise.

Whether or not that happens depends on if it is allowed a vote. When the Pennsylvania Senate last took up the minimum wage in 2006, it was a bipartisan piece of legislation and state Sen. Ted Erickson, R-26 of Newtown, voted in favor. Our hope is that whoever wins the Senate District 26 election follows his example and supports a raise for working Pennsylvanians. Politics shouldn't get in the way of people's ability to put food on the table.

Kati Sipp is the director of Pennsylvania Working Families, based in Philadelphia.